SOUTH Africa’s 2021 medium-term budget policy statement was more of the same old narrative. It didn’t speak to the high expectations that the impact of poverty and inequality would feature strongly. Instead, South Africans got: be patient, let’s stick to the dream of a primary account surplus, then maybe then we can make the investments needed to implement expanded social security, invest in strengthening the health system and so on. Until then let’s just do more with less. Budgets on their own don’t solve structural issues such as the effectiveness of the state. Reducing the wage bill doesn’t address the…